Evidence from the Nuremberg trial

7.47 By an accord signed on the 8th> August 1945 the Allies established the International Military Tribunal (at Nuremberg) to prosecute war criminals. Twenty two leaders of the Third Reich were charged. One of them was Kaltenbrunner, who was chief of the agency charged with carrying out the Final Solution. Others who gave evidence at Nuremberg have already been referred above, including Vaillant-Couturier, Shmaglevskaya and Hoss. The Defendants rely in addition on the evidence of the following.

7.48 In January 1946 Dieter Wisliceny, who had been an aide to Eichmann, gave evidence in which he accepted his involvement in preparations for the transport to Auschwitz of some 50,000 Saloniki Jews who, he agreed, were destined for the 'so-called final solution'. He also gave evidence that he had been involved in the deportation of 450,000 Hungarian Jews to Auschwitz. In respect of the latter Wisliceny stated that they were all killed with the exception of those used for labour purposes.

7.49SS-Standartenfuhrer Kurt Becher swore an affidavit which was submitted in March 1946 at Nuremberg. He described how people were exterminated by methods including gas at Majdanek. He deposed that, within days of an English newspaper report being received at Hitler's headquarters about gas chambers being used at Majdanek, Himmler ordered the cessation of gassing in Auschwitz and the dismantling of the extermination installations in the crematoria.